CHAPTER XI
THE PEOPLE (continued): EDUCATION
Educational progress.—According to the census returns of 1911 there are not four persons per 100 in the province who are "literate" in the sense of being able to read and write a letter. The proportion of literacy among Hindus and Sikhs is three times as great as among Muhammadans. In 1911-12 one boy in six of school-going age was at school or college and one girl in 37. This may seem a meagre result of sixty years of work, for the Government and Christian missionaries, who have had an honourable connection with the educational history of the province, began their efforts soon after annexation, and a Director of Public Instruction was appointed as long ago as 1856. But a country of small peasant farmers is not a very hopeful educational field, and the rural population was for long indifferent or hostile. If an ex-soldier of the Khálsa had expressed his feelings, he would have used words like those of the "Old Pindárí" in Lyall's poem, while the Muhammadan farmer, had he been capable of expressing his hostility, might have argued that the teaching his son could get in a village school would help him not at all in his daily work. Things are better now. We have improved our scheme of teaching, and of late raised the pay of the teachers, which is, however, still hardly adequate. Till a better class of teachers can be secured for primary schools, the best educational theories will not bear fruit in practice. The old indifference is weakening, and the most hopeful sign is the increasing interest taken in towns in female education, a matter of the first importance for the future of the country.
Present position.—The present position is as follows:—The Government has made itself directly or indirectly responsible for the education of the province. At the headquarters of each district there is a high school for boys controlled by the Education Department. In each district there are Government middle schools, Anglo-vernacular or Vernacular, and primary schools, managed by the Municipal Committees and District Boards. Each middle school has a primary, and each high school a primary and a middle, department. For the convenience of pupils who cannot attend school while living at home hostels are attached to many middle and high schools. Fees are very moderate. In middle schools, where the income covers 56 p.c. of the expenditure, they range from R. 1 (16 pence) monthly in the lowest class in which they are levied to Rs. 4 (5 shillings) in the highest class. In rural primary schools the children of agriculturists are exempt because they pay local rate, and others, when not exempt on the score of poverty, pay nominal fees. Besides the Government schools there are aided schools of the above classes usually of a sectarian character, and these, if they satisfy the standards laid down, receive grants. There is a decreasing, but still considerable, class of private schools, which make no attempt to satisfy the conditions attached to these grants. The mullah in the mosque teaches children passages of the Kurán by rote, or the shopkeeper's son is taught in a Mahájaní school native arithmetic and the curious script in which accounts are kept. A boys' school of a special kind is the Panjáb Chiefs' College at Lahore, intended for the sons of princes and men of high social position.
Technical Schools.—In an agricultural country like the Panjáb there is not at present any large field for technical schools. The best are the Mayo School of Art and the Railway Technical School at Lahore. The latter is successful because its pupils can readily find employment in the railway workshops. Mr Kipling, the father of the poet, when principal of the former, did much for art teaching, and the present principal, Bhai Rám Singh, is a true artist. The Government Engineering School has recently been remodelled and removed to Rasúl, where the head-works of the Lower Jhelam canal are situated.
Fig. 42. A School in the time preceding annexation.
(From a picture book said to have been prepared for the Mahárája Dalíp Singh.)